We're following the funds and we're following
the fraud in $5,000,000,000,000.
Fraud Awareness Week is a perfect time to share what we know about
pandemic-related fraud schemes. Let's take a look.
Questions below:
We Asked the Public
What do you know about fraud?
Read some of our polls and answers below - how many did you know?
Read the case
Find out more
Read what happened
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Anatomy of a Fraud Scheme
Money Mules
People who knowingly or unknowingly move money illegally acquired on behalf of another party are known as money mules. Laundering stolen pandemic funds this way makes it harder for law enforcement to track
the fraud.
In Tennessee, a woman was arrested for a number of alleged PPP crimes including running a money mule operation. She now faces up to 45 years in prison.
Insider Threat
When someone uses their authorized access for wrongdoing - often times in public trust positions - it's known as an insider threat.
In one case of insider threat, the defendant was a contract employee for the Michigan state unemployment agency. She received bribes in return for using her insider access to fraudulently issue 700 claims totaling $3.8M in federal and state unemployment benefits.
Identity Theft
ID theft jumped 3000% in the first year of the pandemic.
Earlier this year a Northern California woman plead guilty and admitted that her son, who is on death row, sent her the personal information of over 9,000 individuals, including names of his fellow prisoners and other individuals whom they suspected might qualify for stimulus checks. She used the information to claim 121 checks for $145,200.
One reason a PPP loan may not have
been forgiven? Fraud.
"Outstanding loan forgiveness applications are a potential indicator of fraud. Borrowers who fraudulently obtained a PPP loan are unlikely to apply for loan forgiveness,” said Mike Ware, the Inspector General for the Small Business Administration, during testimony before Congress.
You can use our dashboard to see examples of borrowers whose loans were not forgiven and have been convicted of fraud. Like this case, where an Oregon woman created a fake cleaning company to steal a $49,000 PPP loan — that she then used to gamble.
Read our latest featured story to learn how to find PPP loans that haven't been forgiven.
A little-known tax credit.
A lot of potential fraud.
The CARES Act created the Employee Retention Credit (ERC) to help keep employees paid during the pandemic. The IRS recently warned employers to look out for scammers using the credit to promise tax savings that are too good to be true.
Read more about the potential ERC fraud our federal oversight partners have found.
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